Contest to port apps to BB 10 gets tons of submissions, but all must be approved.

Computerworld is reporting that RIM's two BlackBerry 10 "Port-a-Thon" contests, held over the past weekend, resulted in 15,000 ported apps submitted for the BlackBerry 10 platform in about 37 hours. The two "Port-a-Thons" encouraged app developers to take non-BlackBerry 10 apps and port them to the platform, offering cash rewards (starting at $100 per app) for ports that pass RIM's approval.

The "15,000" count, confirmed in a tweet by RIM Vice President of Developer Relations Alec Saunders, refers specifically to the number of application ports submitted by eager coders, not necessarily the number of successful, approved ports the contest produced. According to the contest FAQpages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

There were actually two separate halves to the Port-a-Thon contest: one focused on porting Android apps and the other on porting non-Android apps. The non-Android contest spread the net quite wide, being open to apps from a whole slew of sources (including Appcelerator, Maramalade, Sencha, jQuery, PhoneGap, Qt, AIR, Enyo, and previous versions of BlackBerry OS), while the Android contest was, as the name implies, strictly for Android apps. The story with Android apps is a bit muddled, though; as we noted in our BlackBerry Playbook 18-month revisit, RIM has made the porting process from Android to RIM's tablet relatively straightforward, so Android apps which have previously been ported to the PlayBook were ineligible for the contest.

The high level of community engagement is good, and developers churning through 15,000 apps in a single weekend is certainly a sign of interest in the BB 10 platform, but it's not all wine and roses for RIM yet. Creating incentives with cash and a deadline to port over as many apps as possible doesn't necessarily make for quality work or extensive testing on the ports. Far more importantly, however, is that pure app quantity does not a healthy platform make: careful curation of stunning launch apps counts far more than thousands of duds and duplicates. RIM knows this: they have bet the farm on BlackBerry 10's launch, and so we're hoping when BB 10 hits the streets in a couple of weeks that it has an array of excellent, vibrant applications waiting to be installed and used.

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

As a Canadian I wish all the best to RIM, I have known many acquaintances that are now employed in Waterloo. However, 15000 is 2% of the approximately 700 000+ apps the 2 major platforms have. Last I checked (and I took a good hard look with the Playbook fire sales) Playbook app selection was terrible.

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

Tone of this article is really strange... Are you doubting many will get approved? They already had 70 000+ apps prior to this port-a-thon, so even if none of these made it in they have a pretty solid launch start already. Anyway, go RIM.

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

15,000 submitted, not 15,000 approved. The article says this.

Yes, and it also says this:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

15,000 submitted, not 15,000 approved. The article says this.

Yes, and it also says this:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

(emphasis mine)

To imply that they intend to vet them all, yes? Within a week, yes?

To be fair:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

Since it appears neither you nor I are beholden to RIM's secrets to their vetting process only time will tell.So please, stop the trolling.

The race for the third ecosystem between WP8 and BB10. It's nice to keep up on as a curiosity, but I don't know how relavent it'll be.

Problem is that BB10 really looks like an Android skin. With so little distinction, how is Blackberry gonna compete with the slew of Android handsets? Apple seems to be slowly losing that battle already - and they were first to market, have an eco system lock-in and lots of brand prestige. They are also better at making actual phones.

BB10 is a me-too product, that is not even gonna be able to compete on price.A recipe for tragedy.

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

15,000 submitted, not 15,000 approved. The article says this.

Yes, and it also says this:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

(emphasis mine)

To imply that they intend to vet them all, yes? Within a week, yes?

To be fair:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

Since it appears neither you nor I are beholden to RIM's secrets to their vetting process only time will tell.So please, stop the trolling.

I assure you that I did not intend it to be trollish, and do not consider it such. If the wording is tripping me up, so be it - I'll own up to such an error. I will not, however, accept the accusation of trolling.

Edit: never mind. If my original post seemed trollish, I apologize. I concede now that it might have had that tone. I would like to understand their vetting processes and timetable, though. They cannot possibly mean it the way I'm reading it. If that's my failing, oh well, my bad. Can it be clarified?

The race for the third ecosystem between WP8 and BB10. It's nice to keep up on as a curiosity, but I don't know how relavent it'll be.

Problem is that BB10 really looks like an Android skin. With so little distinction, how is Blackberry gonna compete with the slew of Android handsets? Apple seems to be slowly losing that battle already - and they were first to market, have an eco system lock-in and lots of brand prestige. They are also better at making actual phones.

BB10 is a me-too product, that is not even gonna be able to compete on price.A recipe for tragedy.

I don't even like BB, but I can see the proposition here. Your comments perfectly address Windows Phone, they have nothing Android doesn't it and nothing BB has either. Windows phones are the real tragedy here...

I think a smart follow-up would be to give a $50 credit to everyone who buys a BB10 device. That also works as a subsidy of app developers, but the users would get to distribute the money so it would go to the apps that look the best, get good reviews, etc.

I know the Windows Store isn't doing well at about 38.000 in 2 months, but 15.000 for BB10 sounds a bit unbelievable to me. Doesn't the mac store have about 12.000 apps?

Did they submit Hello World apps?

This is actually 15k from the past weekend. For android apps the porting process is quite simple, as it is for AIR apps -- usually just repackaging for both. OpenGL games are also very simple, there are numerous reports of it only being a couple days worth of work to make the switch. HTML5 apps are also not much work - many popular frameworks are already supported on BB, so again it's just a repackaging. Naturally if you want to make the app feel more like a native app, it will take more effort

Aside from that: they've said that they're on target to launch with 70k on the 30th. Unofficial numbers put it over 100k.

In that context, I'm not sure that the fact that these apps were submitted and not approved is actually newsworthy. First it's a given - as the article points out, it's part of the T&C of the portathons. But more importantly, it won't affect the minimum number of confirmed apps - 70k+ - available at launch.

The article also points out that the quality probably won't be that good for the majority of these apps -- that seems something else that goes without saying. The quality of the vast majority of iOSs 700k apps aren't all that great, nor are the vast majority of Android apps. It's all a numbers game - this way when RIM launches, tech bloggers can't say there is a dearth of apps.

I love the screenshot captioned "BB10 'in action'". So it's a home screen with icons of apps in a grid configuration? And there's some sort of "app store" where you can search for and download apps right to your phone? Wow, revolutionary indeed. Now I understand the hype, no wonder it took years. Well done, RIM.

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

Oh no. I'm sure each and every one of those apps customized their UI to match the look and feel of RIM's OS, for example, making sure that all buttons were removed and replaced with gestures, converting images to 8-bit highly compressed jpegs, to make sure they fit in with what RIM expects of their developers.

Should we be concerned about the thought of RIM somehow vetting 15,000 apps in a week? Perhaps I'm misinterpreting things here (that happens), but I can't imagine that involving much actual testing. Install. Run. Did the screen crack? Any smoke? No and no? [STAMP]

15,000 submitted, not 15,000 approved. The article says this.

Yes, and it also says this:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

(emphasis mine)

To imply that they intend to vet them all, yes? Within a week, yes?

To be fair:

Quote:

According to the contest FAQ pages, the actual usable count of applications from the contest will take at least a week to be determined, as RIM must vet each app before declaring it "approved."

Since it appears neither you nor I are beholden to RIM's secrets to their vetting process only time will tell.So please, stop the trolling.

I assure you that I did not intend it to be trollish, and do not consider it such. If the wording is tripping me up, so be it - I'll own up to such an error. I will not, however, accept the accusation of trolling.

Edit: never mind. If my original post seemed trollish, I apologize. I concede now that it might have had that tone. I would like to understand their vetting processes and timetable, though. They cannot possibly mean it the way I'm reading it. If that's my failing, oh well, my bad. Can it be clarified?

It looks like the insinuation came from your possible misusage of emphasis. You bolded "a week to be determined" and the other commenter pointed out that you missed the "at least" part.

I'd be curious to learn the percentage of the 15,000 apps that are calculators, or similar drivel.

As for the actual OS, it's a colossal misstep on their part to take a "me too" approach. Parity, or near-parity, will not succeed, not now. Microsoft might possibly brute-force their way into the market doing that but not RIM.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of apps on iOS and Android there are only few hundred worth talking about and few dozens worth installing and keeping on your device. There is so much fluff there, so many useless apps ...

This race for apps, 15K! Sounds like a pile of conversion crap. Native well designed complex apps will take time to port over.

Apps in a sense are like books. A store can have shelves full of books, but if the best sellers are missing people will stop coming.

Out of the hundreds of thousands of apps on iOS and Android there are only few hundred worth talking about and few dozens worth installing and keeping on your device. There is so much fluff there, so many useless apps ...

This race for apps, 15K! Sounds like a pile of conversion crap. Native well designed complex apps will take time to port over.

Apps in a sense are like books. A store can have shelves full of books, but if the best sellers are missing people will stop coming.

Yeah, except you can't compare a smartphone to a bookstore. The first goal of the phone is not to offer the biggest number of apps, including the best-sellers; first and foremost, it's a phone with which you have access to the Internet, calendar, email, minimal text processing, etc. Once you have all that, the phone you choose is a matter of taste.

The race for the third ecosystem between WP8 and BB10. It's nice to keep up on as a curiosity, but I don't know how relavent it'll be.

Problem is that BB10 really looks like an Android skin. With so little distinction, how is Blackberry gonna compete with the slew of Android handsets? Apple seems to be slowly losing that battle already - and they were first to market, have an eco system lock-in and lots of brand prestige. They are also better at making actual phones.

BB10 is a me-too product, that is not even gonna be able to compete on price.A recipe for tragedy.

I have a Blackberry and an Android phone. Blackberry still does email and calandar stuff better. BBM is an excellent app that has millions of rabid adherents. My 13 year old daughter switched from a Blackberry to an iPhone 5 and keeps complaining about not having BBM any more. Blackberry also has a history of being more frugal with data usage. My Blackberry usage is usually in the 10s or 100s of megabytes. My Android usage is usually in the 2.5 to 3.5 gigabyte range. Admitedly that's because the Blackberry is next to useless for anything but email and messaging, but it does those things very well and very efficiently. If BB10 has a decent web browser and a wide variety of fully functional and well supported apps, they have a chance.

Do I think they will succeed? No. I think they squandered their lead by refusing to recognize that smartphones were about more than messaging and email for far, far too long. Blackberry App world has been pitiful so far. However, they have admitted they needed drastic changes, and supposedly they are addressing their issues with BB10. Due to their remaining rabidly loyal customer base I think they have a chance. I think they could increase that chance by giving people better control over data usage than their competitors due since the days of unlimited plans have ended for most, and ways to eat up data are only increasing. However, I think that even if BB10 is awesome, it's too late for Blackberry. Too many people left BB out of extreme frustration with their limitations to give them another try. If I didn't need to have my Blackberry I'd dump it in a heartbeat and never look back.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.